Friday, May 22, 2015

F3 Snow Cannon

It was July
in Tornado Alley, and I was bored. I wasn’t hot because I kept myself at
altitude in the clouds most of the time. And today was a particular scorcher
over Garnett, Kansas, southwest of Topeka.

I had cloud
surfed to the top of the cumulonimbus anvil, and now gathered up the cloud
material, condensing it on itself and using a modest wind to keep it aloft as
it transformed from cloud, with minute ice crystals, to snowflakes. I gathered
all that snow together in a circulating flurry until I had enough.

I dove
through the cloud stack faster than gravity could take me, pulling the snow in
my wake. I also projected wind ahead, a cold, icy breeze from 40,000 feet that
even the summer sun would take time to warm up. I dove straight for a farm on
the outskirts, where a farmer and his family tried to keep at their work
despite the blistering heat.

I dove on
down to just a few thousand feet, and then turned sharply, letting the snow
drift I had created plummet down in one giant heap, burying the farmer’s house
and barn in three feet of snow.

The family
and their neighbors would know of the snow, but by the time any news agency got
out to the remote farm, the snow would all be melted. No one would believe it
had snowed so intensely on one tiny farm in the middle of July.

I soared
down a little lower, and then gave a wave as the farmer’s kids pointed at him
and looked up.